What Evil Lurks?
by MLaw
Summary: Illya's thoughts wander after something happened during a mission. He came too close... Pre-Saga This fic was inspired by the song "Evil" by Earth Wind and Fire.
There was a sudden flash of lightening in the sky followed by a distant rumble. The storm was far off, looking like it was rolling out to sea. The sky was clear within minutes, yet to a certain Russian UNCLE agent, the weather was of no concern to him.

Kuryakin muttered to himself as he sat alone on the roof of headquarters. The last mission had given him the jitters. It had been a close call for him, not the mission itself but for what he'd almost done. Today he'd nearly released the monster within.

Illya was puffing away on a cigarette, trying to take the edge off his nerves. Nicotine seemed to help with that; though smoking was a dirty habit it was one he'd had since he was a young boy in the orphanage in Moskva. It made one look tough, and given he'd been small for his age, he needed to keep himself from being a target by the bullies there.

He could run rings around them intelligence-wise and he made use of that to keep himself from being beat up, well that and carrying a switchblade to keep himself safe didn't hurt either. They had their own brand of maliciousness in the Orphanage.

"Evil," Illya said the word out loud. He was familiar with it on so many levels, not just with others but with himself.

As an adjective the meaning of the word 'was related to something or someone profoundly immoral and malevolent.' That was a dictionary speaking. Other words came to mind...immoral, dishonorable, depraved, reprobate, villainous, nefarious, there were many others.

As a noun it alluded to profound immorality, wickedness, and depravity.' The devil if it existed, was supposed to be evil incarnate, but there were many others who relentlessly stalked the world whether spurred on by Lucifer or not, like Leopold II of Belgium who killed 8,000,000 people.

Ismail Enver of Ottoman, Turkey who annihilated 1,200,000 Armenians, 350,000 Greek Pontians and 480,000 Anatolian Greeks as well as 500,000 Assyrians.

Joseph Stalin during his brutal 30-year domination as absolute ruler of the Soviet Union reeked of so many atrocities. So much was linked to his now infamous name; purges, expulsions, forced displacements, imprisonment in labor camps, manufactured famines, torture, good old-fashioned acts of mass murder and massacres, not to mention World War II. The estimate of 40 to 60 million dead was mind boggling, though the complete death toll would likely never be known.

Adolph Hitler...12,000,000 in the camps and another 3 million Russian prisoners left to die as well as the countless millions deported from their homes and who died in forced labor.

Illya was very familiar with this first hand, having lost his family and those he cared about to the Nazis. Being interned in the Sryets concentration camp in Kyiv as a child; he witnessed many acts of evil first hand.

There were some many of that ilk who stalked the world; when one was eliminated another stepped up to take his place. It seemed like an endless cycle, like a crusade. At times it felt very much like a losing battle.

And now as an agent of the U.N.C.L.E. Illya questioned his own evil which he dealt with everyday. That evil which ran through his brain, kept at bay by his heart.

He was a trained killer and followed his orders to eliminate those who sought to continue the spread of their twisted journey to achieve absolute power. Evil fighting evil, that was what it was all about at least in his case.

Illya Kuryakin chose to fight his own inner turmoil that had been ingrained within him since his Soviet masters had gotten hold of him as a young teenager.

The psychological torment and training was still there in his head, lurking about and waiting to escape. It was a daily internal clash of wills; his Soviet agent self versus the boy that his parents, Nicholaí and Tanya Kuryakin, had raised him to be, as well as had his paternal grandmother, Marina Kuryakina.

He missed his family all the time, but his babushka even more so. He missed her wisdom, and assurance, her love of truth and will to survive. She was the one who taught him to be a better person, and it was her words...no her spirit that helped keep him from turning into a monster.

There were times he worried that one day someone would push him too far and that he would release that pent up evil that lay buried deep within his psyche.

Illya Kuryakin was a dangerous man for many reasons, but that which lay hidden beneath the surface, his potential for barbarity; that was something he fought to keep under lock and key. He kept many things hidden away within himself, but none more than the callousness and brutality that had been drilled into him day after day as he was trained to be a mindless drone of the Soviet machine. It seemed endless.

It was why he was so secretive about his past. He wanted no one to know about the psychological training he'd been through that was supposed to have made him into a killing machine.

The Directorate however, was disappointed their training was seemingly a failure with young Kuryakin and that's was why they willingly gave him away to U.N.C.L.E. thinking he would die within the first year of service to them. In that Illya had proved them wrong.

Yet their training was still there with him, and it was waiting to be let free…for the right button to be pushed one day.

Napoleon knew nothing of it, but every once in awhile there were little vicious remarks Illya would make, giving just a hint at the underlying savageness that was there.

'The Gazebo in the Maze Affair' wherein the gamekeeper was killed by the wolves kept in Partridge's maze. Illya uttered 'bon appetite' with a coldness in his voice, at the time he was almost amused. Napoleon never caught that, at least he'd hoped his partner hadn't.

The evil running through Illya Kuryakin's brain was sublimated by the love of his family, and what they taught him as a child. His heart would turn his head to love, and not be the blame. Maybe if he learn to pray again, that might help?

One day someone would do it, someone would shove him in the wrong direction and release what was deep inside him, and all the love in the world wouldn't be able to stop it.

God help that person when it happened…

Illya's head canted to one side as heard the sound of footsteps crunching on the gravel behind him. He pulled his pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes from his jacket pocket, holding them up as an offering to this person, not even looking to see who it was. He already knew.

A hand reached out, taking them. "Thanks tovarisch," Napoleon said." I see you finally got rid of that Turkish blend of yours and switched to an American brand."

Napoleon withdrew a cigarette, and lit up. Pulling up a milk crate, he sat down next to his partner, not saying another word. He knew that when Illya was tensed up, perhaps in a melancholy mood after a mission; it was better to just be quiet.

He'd be there for his partner, and Illya knew he was there for him no matter what. Sometimes the words not spoken were the most profound.

Together they watched as the sun set on another day...


End file.
